After completing a Bachelor of Science Degree at the University of Melbourne, Sam worked as a Research Assistant at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute for about 10 years. During the late 1990's, he became aware of the important aspects of painting through the teachings of abstract expressionist Yvonne Audette. Through this experience, Sam developed an awareness of shapes and structure within paintings, giving him an understanding of works ranging from Rembrandt to Cezanne. Since moving to Western Australia he has pursued his art as a full time career.
During the past 25 years he has travelled and painted throughout most parts of Western Australia, soaking up the diversity of the landscape. Sam lives on a bush block with his family in a granite house he built himself, outside of Margaret River. In 1991 he won the Victorian Artists Society Spring Exhibition and following this won the Camberwell Rotary Travel Award in 1992, enabling him to travel throughout Russia and Europe.
He has held 21 solo exhibitions in a diverse range of media, including oils, acrylics, watercolours, etchings and pastels. For the last 15 years he has been exploring and discovering the materials used by renaissance artists. Through much research into painting practices from treatise dating back to medieval times, he has gained a knowledge and insight into many of these older ways of painting. This has enabled him to incorporate such things as Da Vinci's oil medium, or occasionally use rare pigments such as lapis lazuli. He picks and presses walnuts from a south west orchard, then purifies and heats the oil for an extensive period to provide a painting medium that is extremely low yellowing and flexible when compared to other oil mediums. This oil is both unique and versatile in its properties and handling abilities, enabling him to move the paint in a way that expresses his perception of nature. It is a wonderful dialogue between artist, nature and medium.